BP Leads the Pack with New 2.2 Petaflop Supercomputing Facility

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At insideHPC, we see a lot of stories about Moore’s Law and the steady growth of supercomputing performance. But once in a while, a factoid jumps up and really gets our attention. This time, it’s about increasing demand for computing cycles.

This week BP opened it new datacenter in Houston, home to the world’s largest supercomputer for commercial research. And while we first reported on this pending story back in December 2012, here’s what caught my attention in the press release notes:

BP’s computing needs are 20,000 times greater today than they were in 1999.”

Now, when you take into account that BP was probably one of the world’s top consumers of commercial compute cycles even back then, you get the idea as to why today’s enterprises need to compute to compete.

BP’s investment in this new supercomputing center not only highlights the increasingly high-tech nature of today’s global oil and gas industry, it underscores our company’s long-held belief in the vital role technology plays – and will continue to play – in solving the world’s biggest energy challenges,” said Jackie Mutschler, BP’s Head of Upstream Technology.

In addition to enabling future growth, the new HPC center in Houston will also feature improved electrical and cooling systems that reduce power consumption by 30 percent over the current facility, as well as space for other BP technical support systems and offices.

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